The use case for Codr

why-codr.md

To learn more about Codr, see http://codr.io.

What Codr Isn't

Codr is not an IDE: it’s not a development environment at all. Codr will not provide remote file-system access, terminal access, or other features necessary to use Codr as a coding environment.

Codr is also not designed to support pair programming. To pair program, you need access to a full development environment, including the ability to actually run the program in question.

For the pair programming use-case, I'd highly recommend Screen Hero or a shared tmux/screen/byobu session if coding in the terminal is your thing.

What Codr Is

Codr is a collaborative pastebin. It's intended to be used as a whiteboard for remote developers.

How we use a Whiteboard

Here are a few ways we use a whiteboard in a physical office:

1. We use a whiteboard to jot down meeting takeaways that everyone can see.

2. We scribble pseudo-code on the whiteboard as we explore hard technical problems.

3. During interviews, we often ask developers to work through problems on the whiteboard.

4. We use the whiteboard to teach new programming concepts.

5. We use the whiteboard to explore layout ideas for UIs.

In all these cases, we use the whiteboard because it's shared, fast, and simple to use. Notwithstanding its limited feature-set, we use the whiteboard every day.

How to use Codr

Codr is an ideal alternative to the whiteboard for programmers who are collaborating remotely. Like a whiteboard, Codr is excellently suited for summarzing meeting takeaways, talking through technical designs, working problems during interviews, prototyping UIs, and for providing hands-on instruction.

I've seen coworkers use Codr in preference to the physical whiteboard when they're in the same office. It's that frictionless.

Codr:

1. Is completely collaborative - unlike a screenshare or shared tmux session, every user has their own cursor. Unlike many other collaborative tools including scratchpad, etherpad, or JSFiddle’s collaboration mode, each user’s selection is shared in real time and each user has their own undo stack.

2. Is optimized for speed, so you can easily share spontaneously while on a call or in a chat session. To share, just paste a link.

3. Works like a pastebin, so you can safely share a document with anyone. This makes Codr an ideal companion for IRC, remote instruction, or open source collaboration.

4. Provides an instant, shared render pane for HTML/CSS/JS for easy UI prototyping.

At the end of the day, Codr is a nice-to-have. Anything you can do in a Codr document you can achieve today via existing tools. For "whiteboard-style" collaboration, however, you'll find that Codr is more functional than existing tools. As a result, you'll find yourself "showing" when you might have otherwise resorted to "telling". That's a meaningful gain.

Is it possible to create a project with multiple documents (eg. main.css, index.html, etc.)?